


Why Was I Born Dark

by Ohdotar



Series: Tell me what I am [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, But are also weirdly romantic, But is also a dumbass, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Fluff and Angst, Jotun Loki, Jötuns don't have horns or heat cycles or double genitals, Kissing, Loki Needs a Hug, Mostly just that, Mutual Pining, Rainy evenings suit angsty conversations well, Shapeshifting, Sorry not sorry at all because that's just weird af, Talk about feelings, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 01:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11726640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohdotar/pseuds/Ohdotar
Summary: Why was I born dark of hairWhy was I not born blonde and fairLoki felt the rush of blood to his neck and cheeks that followed Sigyn’s hot fingers, when she toyed with his collar. He hoped that she hadn’t yet learned to recognise the deeper shade of blue that his face undoubtedly sported at that moment. She lay half on top of his chest and smiled at him. Loki smiled back.“Are you blushing?” Sigyn asked and Loki breathed out a surprised laugh.





	Why Was I Born Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think that Loki, having to live with being a Jötun, would probably be a very sexual person at all. He's a bit touch-starved all right, but can't really justify for himself why he should accept those touches.
> 
> This is part of a bigger inter-realm politics au that I haven't written yet, but I think that all you have to know is this:
> 
> \- Loki has spent some years in Jötunheim  
> \- When he returned to Asgard he got back into the highest political circles pretty quickly despite being publicly disowned  
> \- Sigyn is an architect which is a super rad job in Asgard  
> \- They got to know each other through Loki's council colleague Baldr and now Loki and Sigyn are more or less dating  
> 

It was raining that night, and the steady hum of it was clearly audible indoors.  
It rarely rained in Asgard - a slight drizzle occurred every now and then, of course, just enough to paint rainbows against the stars and water the flowers on everyone’s balconies. But not like this. Not a heavy downpour. That was more of a summer in Jötunheim.

The tall curtains were closed and the lights were low, and the only flicker in the dim came from the softly shimmering buds of goldcomb twigs in a vase. Their scent filled the room, like pinewoods after rain. And something sweet. Golden catkins laid out against the silver-green leaves of the common garden plant.  
It was all so Sigyn. She must have picked or bought the flowers that morning, considering how fresh and leafy they were.  
Loki sighed slowly and slumped down to sit on the wools and linens of her bed. He was more than exhausted, and still for some reason very much on edge. At least the bed and the woven carpet were soft.

“Sigyn?” he called out, still uncomfortable with raising his voice inside her home. He waited. Her steps approached from outside the bedroom.  
“Coming, don’t worry. I just made sure that the stove is cooling down properly and cleaned up the glasses,” she said as she stepped past the curtain in the doorway and wiped her hands on the thighs of her baggy trousers.  
“I’m sorry,” Loki said and looked up at her. “You could have said and I would have helped. It’s hardly proper for me to come here every other night and still leave all that… hosting for you.” The stove, the glasses. It was all something he still couldn’t remember. Granted, it was also most likely the reason they could never visit his cramped chambers when they met up after working hours. He should have started cleaning days in advance.  
Perhaps he would start tomorrow in case she would like to visit some time next week. He could do the dishes and try not to break anything, open the windows, even try to figure out a way to get the red and blue stains of wine and blood off the carpet. Get his laundry done. 

Sigyn looked at him with a strange expression and started to undo the braids that her long honey-colored hair was up in.  
“I forgive you, there’s no need to look so morose. You’re hardly as bad a guest as you seem to think,” she smiled, and the softly rolling curve of her nose cast a shadow on her cheek. Loki couldn’t keep away a small answering smile of his own.  
“Truly?” he asked carefully, crossing his fingers to keep himself from fidgeting. His hands were feeling almost warm for a change. He should have filed down his nails again, they were soon starting to grow thick enough to be called talons or claws.

“Truly,” Sigyn said. “I invited you here to keep me company, you help me cook and eat - and even wash the dishes,” she pointed out, and Loki almost laughed. “I think that it will be fine for me to keep order in my own kitchen at the end of the day.”  
And she sat beside him on the bed and took his hands into her own. He was never going to grow used to the feeling.

“You’ve been very quiet today,” Sigyn said, and Loki heard the worry in her voice, but all he could see was the way her soft, warm hands held his long, clumsy, corpse-blue fingers.  
“I know,” he said after a short silence and took a better hold of her hands, enjoying the warmth that often felt uncomfortable when shaking hands with strangers or passing on important letters from hand to hand. Never with Sigyn, not truly. She was looking at him with the same strange eyes again as before, both worried and amused.  
“I think something has put out the spark between my mind and my words. But it should be back tomorrow,” Loki tried to reassure her. Sigyn huffed a little and nodded like she didn’t really believe him, but laid down on the pillows nonetheless.  
She glowed in the low light just like the goldcomb catkins on her nightstand. Hair and skin all golden honey and shaded red, her blue shirt silver-green without the bright daylight. She was looking at him with her dark eyes - gray or brown, Loki still couldn’t say - and he yielded.  
He seemed to do a lot of that these days.

He turned to lay on his side, looking at Sigyn. She was smiling a little as she curled her ankles around one of his blue calves, dragging his leg closer to her. The hem of the kilt was at his knees.  
“Kiss me,” she said, and it was so sudden and so surprising that Loki froze completely.

Kiss her? Her red lips and the smooth skin of her cheeks? Loki was staring at her warm colours with his mouth parted for just a little too long, and she sighed.  
“All right,” Sigyn said softly. “Just… come closer, then,” she said.  
“That is,” Loki said, and meant to end with ‘perfectly doable’ to lighten up the mood a little. Somehow the words died on his tongue when Loki lifted himself up on one elbow. His hair was suddenly all over his face and he was hovering over her like an animal; was reaching out with a cold hand over her neck, black and blue and ridged. He backed up.  
“You come closer first,” he said softly and tried to smile like it was a lightly made jest. Sigyn lifted a confused brow, but the look soon turned to laughter when Loki rolled down on his back and opened his arms for her.  
“If you insist,” Sigyn said, and her warm body pressed against Loki’s own cold one like it should have always been there.

Loki felt the rush of blood to his neck and cheeks that followed Sigyn’s hot fingers, when she toyed with his collar. He hoped that she hadn’t yet learned to recognise the deeper shade of blue that his face undoubtedly sported at that moment. She lay half on top of his chest and smiled at him. Loki smiled back.  
“Are you blushing?” Sigyn asked and Loki breathed out a surprised laugh. He thought about lying. Denying it.  
“If it should be called that,” Loki admitted instead, just to hear her laugh again. He slid his hands around Sigyn to rest gently on her waist. Mostly he just didn’t want to see them on her arms or touching her hair that fell down over her shoulders. Didn’t want to see his own hands on her.  
“Can I kiss you?” Sigyn asked in all seriousness, softly, studying his face and opening the clasp of his collar with one hand. Loki tried to escape her look for a breath, but gave in and looked at her again. It wasn’t a nod, nor a real smile, but he did try to soften his expression for her.

If her hands were hot, Sigyn’s lips were like the sun itself. Even the loose, long-sleeved shirt Loki wore was suddenly too constricting and too revealing at the same time, when he felt shivers running up his arms and back and Sigyn’s warm fingers trailing lightly across his jutting collarbones. It was over in a heartbeat, but in the same moment Loki felt his heart beating twice as fast as it should have.  
Sigyn kissed him again, then sat up and tugged at his shirt. 

Loki panicked and grabbed her wrist. Sigyn looked at her with a worried little frown, but her huff of breath was clearly frustrated.  
“What is it?” she asked and let go, slowly and deliberately like someone working with a young, scared animal. Loki let go of her quickly, like the scared young animal after a failed attack, and slid further up against her pillows.  
“I don’t… I don’t want you to,” Loki started, feeling out of breath and not in control of his own limbs. Sigyn was starting to look less worried and more confused and no, that was not how the night was supposed to go. 

“I don’t want to see… myself, Sigyn. I don’t want to,” Loki forced out, shoulders and neck tensing as he tried to hide behind his tall collar. He could hear the shrill and husky edge of his voice that always came up when it was about to break. He was being honest, for once in his life, and not only was it making everyone else miserable, it was rubbing his own thoughts and feelings raw as well. Sigyn sat back on her knees with a deep breath and her shoulders slumped.  
“I have seen you before,” she whispered and twisted her lips a little. “I thought that we… that it would be all right.”  
“That’s different, that’s,” Loki said. He knew that she had seen him fight shirtless and that his sudden chastity made him a hypocrite at best. But that was all a show.  
He knew how people looked at him when he did his best to look like a jötun. He could stand up straight and all his muscle and bone, and even his facial features, were shaped just a little off nowadays. He looked just wrong and stretched and foreign enough to disgust - especially with the ridged blue skin showing on the shaved side of his scalp. 

The ugly looks were easy. He could look back with just as much disdain and think ‘Yes. If I have to put up with this, so do you,’ and it would all be well and true.

But with Sigyn it was different. When she was looking at Loki, her lips pressed into a tight line and her hands clasped tightly together, he couldn’t tell how he was supposed to feel. How could she look at him like that?  
Loki could return the smiles of delight and the adoring looks easily, for Sigyn earned them with her stories and ideas and surprising questions every time they met. She was lovely. She was handsome. She was intelligent and brave and ambitious, and still so content and gentle.  
When she looked at him like he would have been deserving of similar looks, he felt uneasy. Even such unsaid compliments were too difficult to accept.

“Sigyn, I’m sorry,” Loki said softly and sat up straighter, reaching out for one of Sigyn’s hands. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to put up with something like this, I am a… a ruin. A wreck. I don’t think that I can,” he rushed to explain without really knowing what he wanted to say.  
“No, don’t say that, you don’t have to apologise,” she cut him off and took a tight hold of his hand. “You can’t begin to know how much I get from just spending time with you, you’re good company, Loki, and you don’t have to feel like I demand too much. I would hate to do that,” Sigyn added firmly, but Loki saw it in her smile and heard it in her voice that she was about to cry. He stared at her for a long moment.

Loki lifted his hands softly to Sigyn’s jaw and cheeks to kiss her, and even if he felt her surprised shiver, he also felt her hands when they grabbed the front of his shirt tightly, pulling him closer. The heat of her was searing his lips and burning his fingers and he took it all in.  
A sharp little breath escaped him when he forced the magic inside him to bend and tie itself into a new knot, but he could feel the cold escaping him as quickly as he felt the warmth of Sigyn settle down a bit.

His hands were pale and a bit sunburnt where they held Sigyn’s face, his nails flat and smooth, and he no longer saw the faint shadows of her body heat in the back of his mind. How used to that had he grown that he now felt half blind.  
Sigyn was staring at him like she’d never seen him before.  
“What did you do?” she asked, eyed wide, clinging to his shirt.  
“Does it matter?” he breathed out. “Sigyn, this… it’s still me. I am still me,” Loki added in a whisper. More than a reassurance it was a plea for one, when he looked into her eyes and saw her scanning his face in confusion. She touched his cheeks and forehead, both wary and in wonder, looking for words.  
“Loki, you don’t have to,” Sigyn said. That was enough.  
“I do. I do, I have to,” he blurted out, pressing another kiss on her lips, on her cheek. She looked even more lost, and he knew that he was making no sense, but by Valhalla did he try.  
“I don’t know how else to be, I can’t. Let me have this. I can let you see me like this, but not like... not like that. Only this once,” Loki rambled on and looked at her, held her, certain that the blush he wore from ear to ear was now clearly visible.

The world seemed to stop for a moment, and the sounds of his own beating heart and the pouring rain were the only thing that let Loki know that it hadn’t.  
Sigyn smiled like she was going to cry again, then laughed a little, and after she had wiped her eyes dry and kissed him, whispering something against his lips, she tugged at the hem of his shirt again. He let her pull it off.

It might have been ‘I love you’, but Loki was not able to mull over that thought for much longer. Sigyn touched him like no one else had done in a very long time.


End file.
